Antara,
Salil and Sabita's elder daughter started singing from an early age. She stunned
everybody when she recorded that beautiful song in the film 'Minoo' with Manna
Dey....'Teri galiyo.n mei.n hum aayee'. Antara became a household name when Salil
composed over 25 children's songs for her. Before Salil, childrens songs were
practically unknown in Bengal besides probably some compositions by Annada Shankar
Roy.These songs changed that completely and are still extremely popular. In his
typical style, Salil composed some wonderful songs such as 'O maago ma' and 'Bul
bul paakhi moina tiyee'. These songs, although for children, often raised questions
and made sharp comments on the social injustice. Since then Antara has matured
into an excellent singer, well trained in Hindusthani classical music and western
music. She is also a fine pianist, a talented composer and arranger. She had to
struggle hard though to shake off her original image of a singer who only sang
'Childrens songs'.

Salil composed some wonderful new songs in the late eighties and nineties
experimenting continuously with new styles and new techniques. However,
quite a few of these songs did not become popular because they were not
marketed properly. One of them is 'Amono saghana barashaay'. Using rich
strings and the appropriate Raag he created a wonderful atmosphere of
the rain ! The other exceptional composition is 'O bhola mon'. Salil used
the Suspended 4th chords with the 5/4 rhythm (paanch maatra) for this
folkish song. I consider this song as one of his best. In fact, he was
quite proud of it himself. This song is however based on the amazing title
music of the TV Serial 'Darpan' which Salil composed back in 1985.This
piece is truly a vintage Salil classic with amazing chord progression
and harmony. I was stunned when I heard it.
At the same time, Salil did some strange things for which I have no explanation.
For example, he let Antara sing a pretty sub-standard Bengali version (see song
#AN32 above) of that most beautiful Lata and Hemanta duet (Jhirjhir jhirjhir badarawa
barse') from the Film 'Parivaar'.
Salil even changed the melody of the 'antara' in this Bengali version ! Not to
everybody's liking, unfortunately. Salil also wrote the lyrics of another traditional
song previously recorded by Ranu Mukhopadhaay ('Akash kusum diye' #OS48)
and let Antara record it again as 'Ak po dudh kinechhi'.